Rants on Cycling and on Life:
Photos of people and bicycles that pass in front of my camera

1.24.2008

pushing a big gear... and the sound of honking horns

this guy pushes a big gear...

as I rode to work this morning I was honked at several times

at one point I was rolling in the center of the lane passing another cyclistnot the first cyclist shown herethe second cyclist on bike with gears

there were two different sounding hornswhich meant two cars had honkedI moved... not immediately... but I movedI moved to the double yellow and gave the cars the thumbs up to passthen an I gave an exaggerated thumbs up to the drivers as they passedjust to let them know cool they really are

cool car cool guy

then both cars sped past at absurd speedsone was a super sweet luxury SUVthe other was a basic sedan... nondescript... yet equally as cool

as cool as they were they moved passed me in tandemjust so that they had to panic stop at the line of slow moving carscars moving so slowly that they might as well have been parked

I split the lanes down the middle while a fellow commuter split things between moving traffic and parked cars

I snapped a few shots as we chattedmy fellow commuter questioned the logic of the standard urban driverthen we split our separate waysthat meeting and that conversation reminded me of something that Meredith had saidMeredith retold how she had talked to a veteran messenger about the honking of the cars in trafficwhich makes me want to jot down a zen koan...not a haiku... a zen koan

a young man rode with speed and confidence through the traffic taking into account the variables around himalways trying to anticipate the danger before it happensdodging the point of intersection evading the worst case scenariokeeping the bike in the spot which is most safe and most efficient

down the hill he could see a familiar form on the bikethe path of this friend on the bike was such that he could follow and still get to his destination without much variation of travel timehe caught the fast moving older man on his well worn urban riga morning greeting was sharedthey moved at a brisk pace along side of each othera smile was shared along with the helloside by side the riders took the full lanetaking the full lane is no great issue because share the road does not mean share the laneif a car needs to pass the bicycle they will have to exit the lane anywaythe lane is not wide enough for a car to pass and still maintain the 3 foot minimum passing distance

rolling at a fast pace they were each focused on the soon to change light just aheadthen also aware of the line of cars past the intersectionthere were a cluster of pedestrians getting ready to crossall these variables were taken into account by the two cyclists

some fast approaching cars closed the distance and followed closeperhaps the cars were anticipating the soon to change lightsa tap to the horn... not a lean which sounds like a screambut an almost friendlydouble tap on the hornan audible nudge or an audible push

the light turned yellow just as the bikers passed through the crosswalk before the intersectionpedestrian started to cross before the the sign read walk everyone was trying to get where they were goingthe bikes zipped through the closing gap of pedestriansthe two cars honk as they buzzed the pedestrians

just ahead was the standard downtown morning rush hour back upthe path was open to ride the double yellow line between the long line of nearly parked cars and sparse on coming carsthe path between the parked cars and the blind spot was also an option there were no right turns for a stretch so the only focus would need to be recently parked cars with opening doors or cars about to pull out

the riders took the same path down the double yellow line single filethe veteran rider lead the neophytewith good timing they hit the intersection ahead as the light turned greenthe path was clearwith a bit of momentum they got ahead of traffic and rolled on through the intersectionthey took the right hand lane side by side for the duration before the path changed due to the line of parked cars

the newbie turns to the veteran and asked... how do you deal with the honking of the horns?

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